Luke 19.1-10
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
 
It’s interesting that today’s story from Luke’s gospel involves Zacchaeus climbing up a tree. (When exactly was the last time you saw a grownup climb high up a tree? That may be the first sign that there is something extraordinary going on here!)

Part of the reason I find this interesting is that this year at Plymouth, we’ve invited you not to go higher…but rather to Go Deeper. We don’t ask you to perch yourself at the top of a tree or even at the top of the cross in our chancel…instead, one of our members created roots that visually symbolize going DEEPER, not higher. And the Stewardship Board invited you to Go Deeper and give thanks for the gifts of Faith, Hope, Community, Life, Treasure, Love, and for Plymouth. You’ve been invited by our preachers this month – Charles Buck, Sue Artt, and me – to be part of a minor miracle in the making, to imagine God’s heavenly economy, rather than the dismal science of human economy, to imagine what it would be like if we spent our money on things that changed the lives of our fellow humans, instead of buying a new couch. And how mission changes lives. Holy Cow, we even had a surprise visit from Jesus during the sermon three weeks ago!

Luke tells us that Zacchaeus is a tax collector. Now, I don’t want you to think of him as a respectable IRS employee, because that isn’t what the role entailed in ancient Judea. Instead, think of someone collaborating with the occupying Roman army and extorting money from the subject people in order to line his own pockets. (Even if you consider your taxes to be extortionate, this is a totally different situation!) So, what we witness as Zacchaeus brings Jesus into his home is a radical personal epiphany and a counter-cultural transformation away from human economy into heavenly economy. Zacchaeus says I will give half my possessions to the poor, and I will pay back four times as much to anyone I’ve defrauded.

Isn’t it interesting that Jesus doesn’t even ask Zacchaeus to do this? It isn’t like the story of the Rich Young Ruler, as Jesus responds to the man’s question about what he must do to inherit eternal life – give away all your possessions. (And you remember how it ends…the Rich Young Ruler ends up going away grieving.)

What is the one thing Jesus asks of Zacchaeus? There is only one sentence in this text that encapsulates what Jesus demands: “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down!” Because of his stature, Zacchaeus was just trying to see Jesus from afar, but Jesus notices him and says, “Come down.”
You all know that beautiful Shaker hymn that Aaron Copeland used in “Appalachian Spring,” “’Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free, ’tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, and when we find ourselves in the place just right, ’twill be in the valley of love and delight.”

I wonder if that is what Jesus has been calling us at Plymouth to do this year… “Plymouth, come down! Come down from that treetop and Go Deeper. Dig into your faith. Remember that you are rooted in God’s love and in the faith of this community. Understand what holds you in place. Go Deeper!”

I don’t know whether you read about this or not, but the UCC together with several local churches in Chicago last week invested $38,000 to buy $5.3 million in destructive medical debt for over 5,000 anonymous residents of Cook County, Illinois – and then they forgave all of the debt. That is God’s heavenly economy at work. Whether it is immigration justice or ending gun violence or educating our children or ending loneliness for seniors or deepening the faith of the person next to you, or giving you a song to sing, you are changing lives through Plymouth.

We come today to celebrate and give thanks for the bounty God has entrusted to us, to stand in the light of God’s heavenly economy. We are here to celebrate a community that not only provides a shelter from the storm of our rancorous politics, but gives us a way to make a difference as an outpost of God’s realm. We are here to consecrate and ask for God’s blessing on our commitments for 2020. We are here to keep on Going Deeper and reach the wellsprings of our faith that nurture not only own lives, but all the lives this congregation touches.

May our journey continue.

Amen.
 
© 2019 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

Mark 12.28-34
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
 
I sometimes give people books that have meant a lot to me, and the one I’ve given more than any other is To Bless the Space between Us by the late Irish priest and poet, John O’Donohue. It is a lovely volume of blessings for many occasions, and they tend to be very evocative of what the spirit is doing within and among us. O’Donohue defines a blessing as “a circle of light drawn around a person to protect, heal, and strengthen.”[1] I would also say that the act of blessing involves the transfer of love from one to another.

For more than a decade I have used one of his blessings when I inter the body or ashes of one of our members, called a blessing “On Passing a Graveyard.”

May perpetual light shine upon
The faces of all who rest here.
May the lives they lived
Unfold further in spirit.
May all their past travails
Find ease in the kindness of clay.
May the remembering earth
Mind every memory they brought.
May the rains from the heavens
Fall gently upon them.
May the wildflowers and grasses
Whisper their wishes into light.
May we reverence the village of presence
In the stillness of this silent field.[2]

Those words of blessing are etched on a standing stone at the entrance to our Memorial Garden, and they may cause those who visit to read them and to offer a blessing on all those who remains rest here at Plymouth.

O’Donohue writes “In the parched deserts of postmodernity, a blessing can be like the discovery of a fresh well. It would be lovely if we could rediscover our power to bless one another. I believe each of us can bless. When a blessing is invoked, it changes the atmosphere.”[3] And for me the atmospheric change is steeped in self-giving love for another, who receives the blessing.

I agree that we — each of us — do have the power to bless and empower one another. You don’t have to be an ordained minister to bless others, and yet we do so at the end of every service, offering a benediction, which is a blessing on you. In fact, benedictus is the Latin word for “blessed.”

We also ask for God’s blessing on animals, as we did a month or so ago during our annual service. And we bless things as well, when we offer a blessing over a meal or with a prayer of dedication for the offering each Sunday. In some traditions, only the minister or priest blesses the offering, but I shifted the litany so that it’s something we all do in worship at each service.
When I was doing my field work in divinity school with the Franciscan AIDS Ministry in Denver, I became acquainted with the writings of brilliant Jesuit from India, named Anthony de Mello. (He’s also the second Roman Catholic priest I’ve quoted in this Reformation Sunday sermon!) He had the amazing ability to spin quips and aphorisms –- as Jesus did –- that turn things upside down or cause you to think about things in new ways. De Mello writes, “We sanctify whatever we are grateful for.” In other words, we make holy whatever we’re thankful for.

Think about that in your own life: what are you grateful for, and how does your sense of gratitude sanctify it?

Will you spend a moment with me, close your eyes if you wish, and just think about what you are grateful for, and ask for God’s blessing upon those people, things, or aspects of your very existence. [pause]

“We sanctify whatever we are grateful for.” We might just as well say that we consecrate whatever we are grateful for. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the verb “consecrate” this way: “to set apart as sacred; to dedicate solemnly to a sacred or religious purpose; or to give sacramental character by performing the appropriate rite.”

In a few minutes, we will do that: we’ll bring our offerings and our pledge cards forward, putting them in a basket, and then together we will ask for God’s blessing on them. This is the same sort of thing I do when we celebrate communion, and I consecrate the elements by setting them apart and dedicate them to a sacred purpose. In consecrating our offerings and our pledges, we are setting aside a portion of our wealth (which is the stored energy from our labor) and we are dedicating it to the ministry and mission of this church.

I think sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the idea that money is stored energy and what we are doing as we pledge is sharing some of that stored energy to further the realm of God in our own time and place. Each of us has set aside a certain amount of our stored energy and today we gather as God’s people to bless it, to sanctify it, to consecrate it. And the act of setting it aside and asking for God’s blessing makes it materially and spiritually different from, say, what we give to our alma mater or NPR.

Turning to Jesus and his interrogative conversation with one of the scribes in today’s reading, what does it mean in tangible terms to acknowledge that God alone is God, that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength? That we are to love our neighbor as ourselves?

One of the ways that plays out for me is in the idea that we ourselves are to be a blessing. We are meant to be living, loving wells that pour out fresh, clear water for God’s world. And I see you doing that: by visiting those who are sick, standing up for immigrants and refugees, sleeping out for the homeless, listening to those who need counsel, creating a home for nonprofits like PFLAG and Laudamus and Prairie Mountain Zendo and AA.

One of our late members, Bob Calkins, a wise retired psychiatrist, would always challenge me when I got into more abstract theology by saying, “Hal, it’s all about love.” And I have a feeling that Jesus would agree. It’s about the love of God, neighbor, and self…and being a blessing.

I think offering a blessing is an expression of love of God, neighbor, and self. Interestingly, though, none of us just gives a blessing…we are also the recipients of blessing from God and from those around us. And when we focus on the blessings we’ve received, it results in gratitude. And then the process turns like a Mobius strip, such that we have been loved and blessed, and in turn we want to love and bless others, and the process continues.

I count myself as blessed to be in this community which does so much to love and bless others not just here at Plymouth, but beyond the four walls of this place. You are a blessing!
​
Thank you and bless you!
Amen.
 
© 2018 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.
 
[1] John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space between Us. (NY: Doubleday, 2008), p. 198
[2] ibid., p. 95
[3] ibid., introduction.